diff --git a/torchvision/datasets/pascal.py b/torchvision/datasets/pascal.py
new file mode 100755
index 00000000000..88151933fb2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/torchvision/datasets/pascal.py
@@ -0,0 +1,165 @@
+from __future__ import print_function
+
+import errno
+import hashlib
+import os
+import sys
+import tarfile
+
+import torch.utils.data as data
+from PIL import Image
+
+from six.moves import urllib
+
+
+class VOCSegmentation(data.Dataset):
+    CLASSES = [
+        'background', 'aeroplane', 'bicycle', 'bird', 'boat', 'bottle', 'bus',
+        'car', 'cat', 'chair', 'cow', 'diningtable', 'dog', 'horse',
+        'motorbike', 'person', 'potted-plant', 'sheep', 'sofa', 'train',
+        'tv/monitor', 'ambigious'
+    ]
+
+    URL = "http://host.robots.ox.ac.uk/pascal/VOC/voc2012/VOCtrainval_11-May-2012.tar"
+    FILE = "VOCtrainval_11-May-2012.tar"
+    MD5 = '6cd6e144f989b92b3379bac3b3de84fd'
+    BASE_DIR = 'VOCdevkit/VOC2012'
+
+    def __init__(self,
+                 root,
+                 train=True,
+                 transform=None,
+                 target_transform=None,
+                 download=False):
+        self.root = root
+        _voc_root = os.path.join(self.root, self.BASE_DIR)
+        _mask_dir = os.path.join(_voc_root, 'SegmentationClass')
+        _image_dir = os.path.join(_voc_root, 'JPEGImages')
+        self.transform = transform
+        self.target_transform = target_transform
+        self.train = train
+
+        if download:
+            self._download()
+
+        if not self._check_integrity():
+            raise RuntimeError('Dataset not found or corrupted.' +
+                               ' You can use download=True to download it')
+        # train/val/test splits are pre-cut
+        _splits_dir = os.path.join(_voc_root, 'ImageSets/Segmentation')
+        _split_f = os.path.join(_splits_dir, 'train.txt')
+        if not self.train:
+            _split_f = os.path.join(_splits_dir, ' trainval.txt')
+
+        self.images = []
+        self.masks = []
+        with open(os.path.join(_split_f), "r") as lines:
+            for line in lines:
+                _image = os.path.join(_image_dir, line.rstrip('\n') + ".jpg")
+                _mask = os.path.join(_mask_dir, line.rstrip('\n') + ".png")
+                assert os.path.isfile(_image)
+                assert os.path.isfile(_mask)
+                self.images.append(_image)
+                self.masks.append(_mask)
+
+        assert (len(self.images) == len(self.masks))
+
+    def __getitem__(self, index):
+        _img = Image.open(self.images[index]).convert('RGB')
+        _target = Image.open(self.masks[index])
+
+        if self.transform is not None:
+            print("transform was not none")
+            _img = self.transform(_img)
+        # todo(bdd) : perhaps transformations should be applied differently to masks? 
+        if self.target_transform is not None:
+            _target = self.target_transform(_target)
+
+        return _img, _target
+
+    def __len__(self):
+        return len(self.images)
+
+    def _check_integrity(self):
+        _fpath = os.path.join(self.root, self.FILE)
+        if not os.path.isfile(_fpath):
+            print("{} does not exist".format(_fpath))
+            return False
+        _md5c = hashlib.md5(open(_fpath, 'rb').read()).hexdigest()
+        if _md5c != self.MD5:
+            print(" MD5({}) did not match MD5({}) expected for {}".format(
+                _md5c, self.MD5, _fpath))
+            return False
+        return True
+
+    def _download(self):
+        _fpath = os.path.join(self.root, self.FILE)
+
+        try:
+            os.makedirs(self.root)
+        except OSError as e:
+            if e.errno == errno.EEXIST:
+                pass
+            else:
+                raise
+
+        if self._check_integrity():
+            print('Files already downloaded and verified')
+            return
+        else:
+            print('Downloading ' + self.URL + ' to ' + _fpath)
+
+            def _progress(count, block_size, total_size):
+                sys.stdout.write('\r>> %s %.1f%%' %
+                                 (_fpath, float(count * block_size) /
+                                  float(total_size) * 100.0))
+                sys.stdout.flush()
+
+            urllib.request.urlretrieve(self.URL, _fpath, _progress)
+
+        # extract file
+        cwd = os.getcwd()
+        print('Extracting tar file')
+        tar = tarfile.open(_fpath)
+        os.chdir(self.root)
+        tar.extractall()
+        tar.close()
+        os.chdir(cwd)
+        print('Done!')
+
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    # todo(bdd) : sanity checking seen in tests/cifar.py ... remove before merging,
+    pascal = VOCSegmentation('/tmp/pascal-voc/')
+    print(pascal[3])
+    # (<PIL.Image.Image image mode=RGB size=500x375 at 0x7EFED5975D10>, <PIL.Image.Image image mode=RGB size=500x375 at 0x7EFED5975D90>)
+    # import torch
+    # import torchvision.transforms as transforms
+    # transform = transforms.ToTensor()
+    # dataset = VOCSegmentation(
+    #     '/tmp/pascal-voc/', transform=transform, target_transform=transform)
+    # dataloader = torch.utils.data.DataLoader(
+    #     dataset, batch_size=1, shuffle=True, num_workers=2)
+
+    # for i, data in enumerate(dataloader):
+    #     print(data)
+    #     if i == 10:
+    #         break
+    # miter = dataloader.__iter__()
+
+    # def getBatch():
+    #     global miter
+    #     try:
+    #         return miter.next()
+    #     except StopIteration:
+    #         miter = dataloader.__iter__()
+    #         return miter.next()
+
+    # i = 0
+    # while True:
+    #     print(i)
+    #     img, target = getBatch()
+    #     i += 1
+    # print(*pascal.CLASSES, sep='\n')
+    # print(*pascal.images, sep='\n')
+    # print(*pascal.masks, sep='\n')